


Their Second Meeting

by TheWordsmithy



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:51:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1313785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWordsmithy/pseuds/TheWordsmithy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect have met a first time, but nothing much came of it. They are now about to meet a second time, and something may come of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their Second Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you may remember that I wrote a story about Arthur's and Ford's first meeting and included in the author's notes that I may or may not write a series of fics about what they did before the events of Hitchhiker's Guide.
> 
> This ended up not happening, because I stopped writing H2G2 fic for reasons that best translate to "I didn't need to write fic anymore" (since I'd been writing these fanfictions as a sort of coping tactic following a traumatic event that was vaguely comparable to Arthur's situation at the start of the series, in the sense that a big, unexpected thing happened that totally threw off the course of my life and put me in situations wherein I panicked not a few times) and "I couldn't write that sort of thing anymore" (since, for whatever reason, I found myself without the ability to write about healthy, intimate, loving relationships - and while Arthur's and Ford's relationship is not the greatest, I don't think it has to be portrayed as toxic or unhealthy, and if I had written any more fics about it, it WOULD have been like that, and I didn't want it to become that).
> 
> As a result of some issues I had to work through, I wrote some fanfiction, and as a result of some new issues I have to work through, I can't satisfactorily write any more, at least not for the present time.
> 
> That said, I wrote a few fics before the point at which I wasn't able to write any more, and this is one of them. I might post some of the others (which were part of the aborted series of stories about Ford and Arthur on Earth). I'll post them partly because I think some people would enjoy them, partly for old time's sake.

For the first time in a while – possibly for the first time ever – Arthur Dent was looking forward to meeting with his therapist. Or at least, he was looking forward to Thursday, which bore the general association with his therapist but that now bore the association of the man, Ford Prefect, who he had met that past Thursday. Why had he been there, anyway? Did he have any actual reason to be hanging around outside a therapists’ building, or did he just happen to be there when the need to not panic struck him?

As it turned out, Ford had been there to make observations about the people who had come there to see their therapists. While his work writing for the Guide had only required him to study the Earth (as opposed to going into great detail about the humans who lived there), he had decided that, even though he’d never be able to finish his article for the Guide, he’d still be able to study the humans. Humans were interesting, even though he seldom understood them, and if he committed himself to studying _something_ , he could pretend that he wasn’t just stuck on an alien planet. He could pretend he was stuck on an alien planet to gather as much information as he could on something interesting, even though the information would ultimately be without purpose.

What time was it? He checked his digital watch, smiling with faint amusement as he remembered that humans still thought such timepieces were a pretty neat idea. It was around the time he and Arthur had met each other last week. Sure enough, Arthur emerged from the building and out to the street. Was it just in Ford’s imagination, or was the human walking with a certain sort of deliberateness? Was Arthur looking forward to seeing Ford as much as Ford was looking forward to seeing Arthur?

“Hello, Arthur,” Ford said as he went to greet him.

“Hello, Ford,” Arthur said, a bit unsteadily. It felt odd to greet this man as though he were a friend, which was how he felt Ford was greeting him.

“Hello,” Ford said again.

“Hello,” Arthur said again.

There was a pause. This pause wasn’t entirely awkward, but it hadn’t made up its mind as to what sort of pause it wanted to be. It could have been one of those relatively tension-free pauses in which no one knows what to say and isn’t particularly looking for anything to say, but it also could have been one of those pauses that quietly plans for its own breaking by the first random thing that chooses to break it.

It turned out to be one of the latter pauses. Arthur broke it by saying, very simply, “Ford Prefect.”

“Yes.”

“That’s…that’s a rather odd name, isn’t it?”

And here Ford realized that the conversation was going in a very dull direction, a direction in which many of his first conversations with people had gone. He would have to explain the reason behind his name.

The real reason he was called Ford Prefect was because, before coming to Earth to research for _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ , he had failed to do the necessary research that would have informed him that “Ford Prefect” was not, as he had originally thought, a perfectly acceptable name. It was in fact the name of a certain model of car and not the sort of name one would expect a human to have.

“My mother had a very weird sense of humor, you see,” Ford said, pulling out the explanation he typically used on anyone who asked.

"Did she, now?”

“Yes.”

“Do explain.”

“Well…she already had the last name of ‘Prefect’, and she thought putting ‘Ford’ in front of it would be amusing.”

“Yes, I see.” The thing about Arthur Dent was that he saw this as not humorous but just odd, and since he didn’t see the humor in forcing the name “Ford Prefect” upon one’s child, he didn’t take this as conclusive proof that Ford’s mother had a very weird sense of humor.

“Well, do you think it would take a very weird sense of humor to think naming your kid ‘Ford Prefect’ is a good idea?”

“Well, it’s just that I fail to see the humor in that,” said Arthur.

“Yeah,” said Ford. “Me, too.”

There was another pause. It was another one of those pauses that hadn’t made up its mind as to what sort of pause it wanted to be, but it was leaning in the direction of awkwardness.

And then, for some reason, its direction took a sharp swerve as Ford started laughing.

“What, exactly, is so funny?” Arthur said.

“I’m not sure, really,” said Ford. If he was going to be perfectly honest, it was a laugh of relief. Any time he told someone that ill-thought excuse for his name and they didn’t give some sort of reaction that made him feel like a total idiot for having the name, he was relieved. It was like being used to being bitten by every dog one ever so much as looked at and now passing through a yard full of terriers, none of which doing anything but perhaps sniffing one’s leg with curiosity. Arthur’s inability to understand Ford’s non-existent mother’s non-existent sense of humor was like a terrier sniffing his leg with curiosity but doing nothing about it.

Perhaps Ford was wrong about his metaphorical dogs and he liked terriers after all. Perhaps the fact that this terrier wasn’t biting his leg cleared a bit of a soft spot in his heart for it. Perhaps he wanted the terrier to do more than sniff at his leg and do no more. Perhaps he wanted to pick up the inquisitive terrier and hold and pet it, saying things like “who’s a good doggy” or “nice little puppy”, the sort of things one says to a small dog one is inexplicably suddenly and intensely drawn to. Perhaps he wanted to cross this yard and see the small dog again. Perhaps he didn’t want to _wait_ to cross through the yard again. Perhaps he just wanted the dog that was in it.

“Ford, what are you doing?” Arthur asked as the other man pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and scrawled something on it. Ford pushed it into Arthur’s hand, leading him to unfold it and see the answer to this question.

“This is your phone number, isn’t it?” said Arthur.

“Yes,” said Ford. “I hope this isn’t _too_ , um, forward of me or anything.”

“Forward?” Arthur considered all possible and likely meanings for this statement. “I don’t suppose it’s too forward. Or perhaps even forward at all.”

“Good,” said Ford. “Good, I’m glad.”

He took off, assuming the understanding a goodbye between him and Arthur, and was blushing a bit as he did so. Actually, he was blushing more than a bit. To say that he was blushing merely _a bit_ would be not unlike saying that cheddar is _a bit_ of a popular kind of cheese or that the invention of penicillin was _a bit_ of an important one. As Arthur looked over the piece of paper he’d been given, tracing over the numbers with his eyes and committing them to memory despite the absence of any need to do so, he too was blushing, also more than a bit.


End file.
